


Sara wakes

by scribblesandscreeds



Category: A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 10:07:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11757576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblesandscreeds/pseuds/scribblesandscreeds
Summary: Sometimes Sara's pretend worlds seem more real than reality. Sometimes they are beautiful, wonderful, terrible, cruel dreams.





	Sara wakes

Sara woke up, with a heart so painful that she thought she might die.

It had been a dream. The Indian Gentleman, the Lascar, the diamonds that had made her rich again, as rich as a real princess - none of it had been real. It had all been a beautiful, wonderful, terrible, cruel dream. There was no Uncle Tom to call her his Little Missus. No Ram Dass to perform impossible magic. The house next door was still empty, and the cold seeped through the wall from its attic to make her own even colder. 

She hugged her bony knees to her chest under her thin blanket. She felt the loss of everything she had had in that dream-world as keenly as if it was her eleventh birthday again, and she had just been told that her papa was dead and she was poor as a beggar. She had nothing in all the world that was truly her own - only a half share of some empty hole in the ground in Africa, and her debt to Miss Minchin. Her treasured copy of “Alice Through the Looking Glass”, which Ermengarde had given her for Christmas; her china doll, Emily; even her thin, ragged dress; all belonged to Miss Minchin for as long she owed her so much money. Even as gifted at pretending as she was, Sara couldn’t begin to imagine how she would ever pay it back.

“It wasn’t real, Emily.” she addressed the doll. “I don’t know how I will be able to keep from despairing today. I don’t think I will be able to pretend anything at all. That dream felt so real, I think it used up all of my pretending.”

Cook would box her ears if she was late down to the kitchen to start work. Even so, she lay in bed a while longer. She did not cry. She was still her papa’s Little Soldier even though he was dead, and soldiers do not cry before a battle, even if their hearts are broken into tiny pieces. Besides, she was too tired to cry, and too hungry. She pulled Emily close to her, and tried hard to pretend that she wasn’t just made of porcelain and cloth and sawdust, and that she really was a person who could hear and understand what she was saying.

It seemed to work. Emily, usually so cold, felt warm in her arms, and seemed to grow bigger, and

  
  
Sara woke up, with her arms around her boarhound.

It had been a nightmare. She was not at Miss Minchin’s, and she would never have to go back. She owned half of a diamond mine. She had Uncle Tom who looked after her and was her best friend, even though he was thirty years older than her. She had her friends, dozens of them, rich and poor and in the middle, who liked her even before she had money. She had Becky, who was in the next room, and more of a friend and confidante than a maid. She had a dog who was bigger than she was and who worshipped her, who was presently taking up considerably more than half of her mattress. He whined softly, and gave her face a little lick.

“You’re a very naughty dog, Boris,” she told him in a thick voice, before burying her face in his solid, warm, doggy side, “you know you’re not supposed to jump up onto the bed.”

**Author's Note:**

> This inspired partly by a personal account of the worst sort of nightmare a survivor can have, and partly by a short film about assistance dogs for people with PTSD. 
> 
> I reckon Carrisford got her a big, strong, not particularly ornamental dog for a good reason.


End file.
